COLOMBIA: Impunity Still Surrounds Palace of

Justice Tragedy

Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/2006/11/colombia-impunity-still-
surrounds-palace-of-justice-tragedy/

BOGOTA -- "I don`t know why I`m talking to you. My life was peaceful,
calm, but now the nightmares and insomnia are back, problems I had
already overcome. I have a new identity now, a new life, a new family; I
am putting myself at risk by talking to you."


The man who said this a year ago to Colombian journalist Mauren Maya identified
himself as a former agent of the army`s B-2 intelligence service, which took part
in the assault on the Palace of Justice in Bogota on Nov. 6-7, 1985, after it was
seized by the insurgent 19 de Abril Movement (M-19, which later became a
political party).

Last year, the commemoration in Colombia of the 20th anniversary of the Palace
of Justice tragedy revived the memories and apparently awakened the conscience
of the former B-2 agent, prompting him to approach Maya, the young director of
the local Ceasefire Foundation.

Maya is one of the authors of the book "Prohibido Olvidar - Dos miradas sobre la
toma del Palacio de Justicia" (roughly "to forget is forbidden; the Palace of Justice
siege as seen from two different angles"), which was launched last week in
Colombia. The other author is Senator Gustavo Petro, a former M-19 guerrilla
fighter and the current spokesman in the Senate for the leftist Alternative
Democratic Pole party.

The differences between the portions of the book written by Maya and those
written by Petro are so great that each chapter is individually signed by its specific
author.

"Hold your fire! That`s an order!" the then president of the Supreme Court,
Alfonso Reyes, demanded over the Caracol Radio station after the M-19 guerrillas
had already admitted their defeat as a result of errors in their seizure of the Palace
of Justice and the immediate military response.

The occupation of the Palace of Justice, which houses the Supreme Court, and the
taking of some 300 hostages, had taken place three hours earlier. The military had
immediately regained control over the lower floors of the courthouse, releasing
around 200 hostages.

"Please get this message out: hold your fire!" was the last that Reyes was heard to
say before the Caracol Radio station was ordered to stop broadcasting by then
communications minister Noem Sann (currently ambassador to Spain), who
ordered the transmission of two football games, one right after the other.

The first order given by then president Belisario Betancur (1982-1986) had been:
"Restore order, but above all avoid bloodshed."

But after that, he left the solution in the hands of the army, which responded with
massive, indiscriminate fire.

The result of the military assault on the Palace of Justice was more than 100
people killed or "disappeared", including civilian hostages, soldiers and 33
guerrillas. The victims included 11 of the country`s most brilliant jurists, and some
say justice itself died that day.

A few days after the event, on Nov. 11, 1985, then Colombian army chief General
Rafael Samudio told the conference of commanders of armies of the Americas, in
Santiago, Chile, that "fortunately the institutions were saved and an example was
given of how to act in the fight against terrorism," says the new book.

In October 1985, the press had warned of a plan to seize the Palace of Justice. But
although the police posted a heavy guard around the courthouse, it was
inexplicably removed a few hours before the rebels seized the building.

A fire that destroyed innumerable legal documents in the courthouse was
intentionally set, a judge concluded in 1989. And according to witnesses, it was set
by the security forces. The files destroyed included all of the requests for the
extradition of drug traffickers to the United States.

The former B-2 agent has not come forward again. The day that Maya interviewed
him, he said he was especially moved because he had run into a family displaced
by Colombia`s decades-old civil war.

The Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES) puts the number
of people forced to flee their homes by the violence at 3.8 million people, mainly
since 1985, when forced displacement became more and more frequent.

The former agent told Maya that in 1989 he and 25 other men were selected to
take part in a "special commando set up by the government" and trained "by
foreign advisers."

"For five years we (the paramilitaries) did the government`s dirty work. All of the
worst things, the most terrible things that happened in the country in those years,
including political murders: we did them," he said.

The former agent (and now former paramilitary) said he was one of the armed
men dressed in civilian clothes seen in the television footage of the Palace of
Justice siege going in and out of the courthouse, pulling people out with their
hands behind their heads and leading them 80 metres away to a historical
building, the Casa del Florero.

The agents also took 11 people who were working or eating in the Palace of Justice
cafeteria to the Casa del Florero.

"I especially remember the face of one young man," a cafeteria employee, the
former B-2 agent and paramilitary told Maya, who then asked him if he could
identify the man in some photos that she had brought with her.

But the ex-agent reacted angrily: "I don`t want to see photos, please, you have
no idea what this has been like for me. I remember that boy, but no, I don`t want
to see him."

The reporter asked him why he remembered that young man in particular. His
response was "Because he was right in front of me. The boy was really scared, I
could see it in his eyes, and I always knew he was innocent."

"They were accused of being accomplices of the guerrillas, although we knew that
many of them weren`t. But nothing could be done because they had been tortured
in the Cavalry School, in army brigade 13, and in the Charry Solano (an
intelligence unit later dissolved because of the systematic human rights abuses
committed there), and they couldn`t be allowed to leave; they knew about and
had seen things that they shouldn`t have," he explained.

Maya told IPS that the former agent revealed to her the orders that he and his
fellow agents had been given. "We were told: no one must leave the Palace of
Justice alive. Do not stop fumigating (the term that was used). Fumigate,
fumigate, fumigate. Do not leave anyone alive."

"We don`t even know where their remains are," Jaime Beltrn, the father of a
waiter who worked in the cafeteria, also named Jaime, told the press on Nov. 7
during a protest held on the anniversary of the Palace of Justice siege.

Perhaps Jaime Beltrn, Jr. was the young man referred to by the former B-12
agent; perhaps he wasn`t.

"He had been working there for a year, to support his four daughters and his wife,"
Beltrn added in his conversation with reporters outside of the Cndor private
security firm, which is owned by retired colonel Alfonso Plazas, who as commander
of the Cavalry School led the assault on the Palace of Justice.

Beltrn and other relatives of people who "disappeared" during the military raid
on the Palace of Justice decided last week to warn people living near the Cndor
security company that their neighbour Plazas was "responsible for crimes against
humanity."

Their "public censure action," as they described it, was inspired by the "escraches"
carried out by human rights groups in Argentina, one of the participants told IPS.

In the "escraches" or "outings," groups of human rights activists go to the homes
or workplaces of former human rights abusers and loudly denounce them.

During a demonstration held to commemorate the Palace of Justice siege two
years ago, the families of the victims were dispersed in Bolivar Plaza -- where the
courthouse is located in the capital -- with tear gas. But this year the police merely
showed up peacefully in three patrol cars, and one officer commented to IPS that
Plazas is well-known in security circles for failing to pay his employees on time.

Maya remarked to IPS that "I think the M-19 did in fact turn to Pablo Escobar" --
the then head of the powerful Medelln drug cartel, who was killed by the police in
December 1993 -- "to obtain the weapons used in the seizure of the Palace of
Justice."